Eligible for parole in 30 years.

A Lubbock County jury handed Clarence Lee Hooker the fifth prison sentence of his life on Tuesday, Jan. 28 — a life sentence for stabbing an East Lubbock woman to death a decade ago.

The jury, which had taken three hours to convict Hooker, 49, in the January 2004 slaying of 78-year-old Mary Elizabeth Davis, took about 40 minutes to decide his punishment.

With two prior felonies on his record, Hooker faced either a life sentence or a prison term of 25 to 99 years.

He didn’t appear to react as District Judge Brad Underwood pronounced the verdict or the sentence.

In urging the jury to hand down the maximum sentence, lead prosecutor Sunshine Stanek pointed to Hooker’s criminal history — which ranged from misdemeanor thefts to sexual assault, to attempted aggravated sexual assault on a child — and said a life sentence would best protect the community from him.

“It was a very difficult case,” Stanek said outside the courtroom, noting the years of work Lubbock police put into working the case.

Even though the case stretched out over years, Lubbock police never assigned it to the cold case file because leads and information kept coming in from the community and were pursued.

Stanek also noted the trial took longer than anticipated, and included a week’s delay because a prosecution witness became ill.

Hooker was serving a five-year prison sentence for failing to register as a sex offender when Texas Department of Public Safety crime lab analysts connected his DNA to genetic material recovered from Davis’ home.

He finished that sentence in the Lubbock County Detention Center while awaiting trial on the murder charge.

Hooker had previously been sentenced to five years for attempted aggravated sexual assault on a child, two years for sexual assault and one year in state jail for theft of a firearm.

Davis’ body was found Jan. 7, 2004, in the home she rented at 2622 Globe Ave., in the Chatman Hill neighborhood after neighbors noticed a floodlight she turned on at night was off.

According to testimony at trial, Davis’ boyfriend also called a neighbor and asked that someone check on Davis because he kept calling her telephone number and getting no answer.

Hooker told police investigators he was Davis’ boyfriend, but said they got together rarely for sex.

The connection, however, came from a drinking glass in Davis’ kitchen with genetic material that was a perfect match to Hooker’s.

A DNA sample that matched 14 of 16 genetic loci with a sample from Hooker — not a perfect match, but sufficient for admissibility in court — was found on the handle of a kitchen knife that was the murder weapon.

Defense attorney David Crook argued that other DNA evidence — some linked to other people, some a mixture that only indicated it came from unidentified men — suggested someone else might be Davis’ killer.